Fine Gardening Lessons for All of Us

Rick Fedrizzi
President, CEO & Founding Chairman
U.S. Green Building Council

One of the things that may surprise people about me is that the first place I head when I arrive home to upstate New York on the weekend is to my garden. After a long week in Washington, DC or the stress of long stretches of international travel, my garden is my place of quiet and reflection. It's my creation.

Recently I had the absolute joy of touring two of the UK's most extraordinary gardens-- each with its own twist on the important role gardens play on how we interact with our world.

This wasn’t some retirement practice event of clicking photos of roses and watching birds do their bird stuff -- (not that there’s anything wrong with that). Rather, it was a well-timed break in the action during an intense weekend of strategic planning with my World Green Building Council counterparts, Paul, Romilly, and Bruce...from the UK, Australia, and South Africa GBC’s respectively, and WGBC’s executive director, Jane Henley.

USGBC Explains Who’s Who at COP17 for Green Building and Climate Change

Roger Platt
Senior Vice President, Global Policy and Law
U.S. Green Building Council

When our delegation of green building council representatives arrived in Durban for the COP 17 climate conference, we hoped we had what it took to help change the world. The diverse group seemed to possess that peculiar mixture of naiveté, enthusiasm and focused passion that can distinguish successful from merely aspiring troublemakers. Through participation and attendance at a variety of different events I was, as usual, impressed with the astounding effort on the part of various individuals and organizations to bring to scale energy efficiency and green building solutions. I was proud to be a part of this movement at the COP.

COP17 has officially ended on a generally positive note – the Durban Platform for Advanced Action was agreed to by parties (for pros and cons of the official outcome see Jason Hartke’s blog, “Good COP, Bad COP”). While nearly 200 countries reaching consensus agreement on the messy issue of the Kyoto Protocol is no small feat, I would be remiss to not also take this opportunity to wave the flag for a record number of parallel achievements in our small yet increasingly growing world of green building and energy efficiency within the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

These achievements include (but are not limited to) a landmark report issued by the Institute for Building Efficiency that directly connects the dots to building efficiency in the UNFCCC context, six major international cities recognized for their progressive local green building policies, and an entire Durban street of low-income houses retrofitted for the occasion of COP17 among many other important initiatives.

With so much happening it seems fitting to make a note of all the experts and talented people whom I encountered at COP17 with a shared agenda to make progress on green building in the name of climate action.

My hope is that this good work doesn’t simply end along with the two-week negotiating session when everyone goes home and files their business cards away in a special COP17 pile. These lessons are important, relevant, and applicable now. Thus, I bring you, “Who’s Who in Green Building and Climate Change,” a cheat sheet of experts and accompanying resources from COP17 that will hopefully continue to foster global collaborations for the rest of the year.

THE LIST:

Jason Hartke (left with Rajendra Pachauri, Chairperson of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)) and Hope Lobkowicz with USGBC represented the interests of green buildings as an integral component of emission reduction goals at the COP.

Jorge Wolpert Kuri with the Mexico National Housing Commission gave an inspiring presentation on the Sustainable Housing Initiative that satisfies its Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Action (NAMA) as a Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) Programme of Activities (POA).

Sandra López Tovar with the Colombian Ministry of the Environment revealed the progressive work that the Colombian government has pursued to mitigate the effects of climate change.

Dr. Lisa Ryan and Philippe Benoit with the International Energy Agency and their 25 Energy Efficiency Policy Recommendations and Energy Performance Certification of Buildings in which LEED is highlighted as one of the most well-known and applied whole building rating schemes.

The Business Council for Sustainable Enegry and USGBC joint side event, “Driving a Transformation to Energy Efficient Buildings.” Pictured from left to right: Jennifer Layke, Jorge Wolpert Kuri, Sandra López Tovar, myself, and Dr. Lisa Ryan

Jennifer Layke and Katrina Managan with the Institute for Building Efficiency at Johnson Controls and their report, “Driving a Transformation to Energy Efficient Buildings: Policies and Actions.”

Lisa Jacobson and Laura Tierney were at the COP on behalf of the Business Council for Sustainable Energy. BCSE hosted expert panels and facilitated the important discussion on the role of the private sector in global climate negotiations.

Simon Reddy, Executive Director with C40 Cities, represents the interests of the 40 largest cities in the world which account for 18% of global GDP and 10% of global carbon emissions. C40 in inspiring and enabling cities to make the emissions reductions necessary to mitigate the effects of climate change to which countries are reluctant to commit.

Reid Detchon, Vice President for Energy and Climate, and Mark Hopkins, Director of International Energy Efficiency, with the United Nations Foundation promoted energy efficiency as a low hanging fruit for emissions reduction opportunities.

Kateri Callahan with the Alliance to Save Energy is a long-time ally of our mutual policy goals and mission.

Thierry Berthoud, Managing Director, Energy & Climate at the World Business Council on Sustainable Development is prominently featured in the Guardian UK’s Sustainable Business Blog with his blog series on green investment. The WBCSD Energy Efficiency in Buildings Program facilitate emissions reductions made at least economic burden—through the low hanging fruit of energy efficiency.

Jeff Moe, Director of Global Policy and Advocacy at the Center for Energy Efficiency and Sustainability, an initiative at Ingersoll Rand is a true UNFCCC expert and a consistent advocate for building efficiency in the global arena.

Mark Watts, Director of Climate Change and Energy Consulting at ARUP, has become a notable player in the international policy arena. Their joint report with the C40, “Climate Action in Megacities,” explains the innovative policy-based prescriptions being pursued by the world’s 40 largest cities. We were excited to discover that nearly 30% of all city-level actions were building related and that buildings accounted for the largest sector of emissions reductions activity!

Dan Hoornweg, Lead Urban Advisor for Sustainable Cities at the World Bank, is shaping the future of city-level efforts under the Clean Development Mechanism. Dan along with a vast team have developed a city-wide, multi-sector Clean Development Mechanism Program of Activities which has the potential of greening all sectors of a developing city, including buildings, energy and water use, waste management, transportation and much more. The first project of which is currently underway in Amman, Jordan.

Safa Jayoussi with the Jordan Green Building Council who supported WGBC events while remaining very active in CAN International efforts to pressure negotiators for a better outcome. Its unquestionable that we have Safa and her colleagues to thank for keeping Kyoto alive coming out of COP17.

Stephane Pouffary, founder, President and General Director of ENERGIES 2050, was a pleasure to meet as an expert on the inclusion of buildings under international climate finance mechanisms, including the Clean Development Mechanism and Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions.

Carl Wesselink with South South North who developed one of the first building-related CDM projects which retrofitted over 2,300 low income housing to be more energy and resource efficient in Cape Town, South Africa.

Bruce Kerswill, Executive Chairman, and Brian Wilkinson, Chief Executive Officer, (and the rest of their incredible team) at the Green Building Council of South Africa who organized the Cato Manor retrofit and hosted the members of the World Green Building Council in their beautiful home country.

Nicola Brewer, British High Commissioner who was the major sponsor of the Cato Manor Retrofit and who additionally accepted the Urban Retrofit Award on behalf Birmingham, UK in the WorldGBC Government Leadership Awards press conference.

The community of Cato Manor in Durban, South Africa – who welcomed us into their homes to witness the impact that this green retrofit has had on their lives.

Larry Schweiger (at right), President and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation, joined us at the Cato Manor event. USGBC and NWF work closely to advance green schools through the Department of Education’s Green Ribbon program.

Pooran Desai and Sarah Alsen with BioRegional, which has developed a One Planet Living framework for sustainable communities based off the simple notion that, after all, we only have one planet to support us. If everyone lived like Americans, we would need the resources of five planet earths.

Rodney Milford with the Construction Industry Development Board of South Africa and the UNEP Sustainable Buildings and Climate Initiative.

Nana Mhlongo (at left) with the Council for the Built Environment who also serves on the Advocacy Committee of the UNEP Sustainable Building and Climate Initiative.

Romilly Madew, the CEO of the Green Building Council of Australia, who was instrumental in securing funding from the Australian government for the Cato Manor COP17 legacy project and who spoke to WGBC’s efforts on sustainable cities.

Pictured from left to right: Jane Henley, CEO, World Green Building Council; Martha Delgado, minister of environment, Mexico City; Nicola Brewer, Birmingham, UK; Yoshio Wagai, senior director of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government's Urban and Global Environment Division; Axumite Gebre-Eqziabher, Division Director, UN-Habitat; David Cadman, President of ICLEI and Vice Mayor of Vancouver, Canada

Jane Henley, CEO of the World Green Building Council who spearheaded the WorldGBC Government Leadership Awards and who continues to be the global ambassador for green buildings and GBCs wherever she goes. At right is a photograph of some of the award winners and representatives from the partner organizations for the competition.

David Cadman and Yunus Arikan with ICLEI International, a partner of the Government Leadership Awards, attended the conference on behalf of their extensive network of local governments.

Pictured from left to right in one of the COP17 plenary rooms: Axumite Gebre-Eqziabher, Division Director, UN-Habitat; David Cadman, President of ICLEI and Vice Mayor of Vancouver, Canada; and Jane Henley, CEO, World Green Building Council

Axumite Gebre-Egziabher and Raf Tufts with UN HABITAT, the third partner of the Government Leadership Awards. Their Sustainable Cities Programme helps cities build capacity and improve their urban infrastructure.

Martha Delgado, Minister of the Environment with the Government of Mexico City accepted the Climate Action Leadership Award for their Climate Action Plan.

Yoshio Wagai, Kenji Suzuki and Yuko Nishida with the Tokyo City Government and the Tokyo Emissions Trading Scheme, which was awarded the Most Groundbreaking Policy Award. We are extremely excited about this innovative policy to address GHGs from buildings and look forward to working with the City of Tokyo on developing a policy template that is replicable worldwide.

For more photos from USGBC's trip to Durban, visit our Facebook album.

Lights...Cities...Action

Jason Hartke
Vice President, National Policy
U.S. Green Building Council

Cross-posted from GreenSource's The Green Source: A Blog of Sustainable Building

With little yet to celebrate as the talks in Durban continue into the second week, international negotiators and other delegates are hearing from local leaders with stories that defy the intransigency of the status quo.

A Matter of Leadership
I’m reminded today that it was Albert Einstein who I think gave us the right perspective about the power of example. “Setting example is not the main means of influencing another, it’s the only means.”

Yesterday, in an uplifting session, the World Green Building Council, in partnership with ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability and UN-Habitat, held up a suite of shining examples as part of its Government Leadership Awards to recognize local policies that are accelerating green building around the world. Award winners included San Francisco (Best Green Building Policy), Mexico City (Climate Action Leadership Award), Birmingham, UK (Urban Retrofit Award), Singapore (Regional Leadership Award), New York City (Industry Transformation Award) and Tokyo (Most Groundbreaking Policy Award).

From left to right: Jane Henley, CEO, World Green Building Council; Martha Delgado, minister of environment, Mexico City; Nicola Brewer, Birmingham, UK; Yoshio Wagai, senior director of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government's Urban and Global Environment Division; Axumite Gebre-Eqziabher, Division Director, UN-Habitat; David Cadman, President of ICLEI and Vice Mayor of Vancouver, Canada

“These cities have demonstrated that focusing on energy efficiency in the built environment delivers a range of benefits, including operational savings, energy security, health and well-being to building occupants, and provides a much needed boost to the economy,” said Jane Henley, CEO of the World Green Building Council.

The theme was simple: green building provides a triple-bottom line opportunity for cities hungry for clean energy solutions. Cities are proving over and over again that green building programs will save energy, help save businesses and residents money, improve health and strengthen the local economy.

For ICLEI, which represents about 1,300 cities around the world, it’s about creating a sustainable future. And for buildings the future is now. “Where ever you are, you can build the buildings of the future, today” said David Cadman, President of ICLEI and Vice Mayor of Vancouver, Canada.

Yes We Can
Tokyo, a city with a strong, rich history in green building, won WorldGBC’s Most Groundbreaking Policy Award because of its Cap-and-Trade program, which is the first in the world to include buildings.

“Before the earthquake, many Japanese believed that we could not further reduce the energy consumption since Japan was doing the maximum in terms of the energy efficiency,” said Yoshio Wagai, senior director of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government's Urban and Global Environment Division.

Jason Hartke, vice president, U.S. Green Building Council, and Reta Jo Lewis of the State Department, discuss the leadership local governments are showing around the world. Lewis, the Special Representative of Global Intergovernmental Affairs, hosted a session Monday at COP17 titled, “Thinking Globally and Acting Locally: Global State and City Governments Build on Success.”

Despite the doubters, Wagai knew his city would meet the challenge. “But in reality we could do more. Yes, we could!” said Wagai. “Even in such a difficult situation, many buildings in Tokyo succeeded in significantly reducing energy consumption by about 20 percent compared with the previous year without sacrificing their functionality.”

In Birmingham, UK, the city’s building retrofit program will spur £1.5 billion of green retrofits in more than 200,000 buildings and helping to create 16,000 jobs in the next 15 years.

“It is very difficult to change the pattern of development,” said Martha Delgado, minister of environment, who accepted the Climate Action Leadership Award on behalf of Mexico City. “But changing these patterns are a matter of leadership.” Through implementing its climate action plan, Mexico City is on course to reduce CO2 emissions by 7 million tons by 2012.

Countries here at Durban can learn a lot from these city leaders, who simply refuse to listen to the naysayers and are taking action now to power a green, prosperous economy from the ground up.

Dispatches from Durban: Climate Talks Can Impact Green Building Worldwide

Roger Platt
Senior Vice President, Global Policy and Law
U.S. Green Building Council

This is the first in a series of blog entries covering the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP-17) taking place Nov. 28-Dec. 9, 2011, in Durban, South Africa.

Yes…domestic politics do have consequences and we all need to understand the implications of our own important national policy challenges. But no…it is not possible to ignore the larger global issues that are not discussed rationally in the narrow context of our domestic political debates.

The global community has never been as transparently interdependent as it is today. And I know that will be particularly clear for those of us in Durban, South Africa, for two weeks of international dialogue on a future pact to tackle global warming.

In fact, today marks the start of the Durban climate talks, sometimes referred to as “COP 17.” Certainly, many issues under the banner of this UN system appear awfully bureaucratic, foreign and complex—and in fact they are. But some policy decisions under consideration have the potential to channel large-scale financing to green building, energy efficiency and other green technologies aimed at reducing emissions and adapting to climate change - and that’s why USGBC is involved.

Issues I’ll be Watching
One of the topics on the front burner of the Durban talks is the structure of a new system for how clean technology can be scaled up in developing and middle-income countries, such as China, India and Brazil. It’s currently being negotiated to facilitate private-sector expertise and implementation. A lot is at stake here; the United States and other wealthy nations have committed to mobilizing $100 billion dollars per year by 2020 for this purpose. How this technology program is operationalized could provide opportunities for the global green building industry on a whole new scale– including companies in the United States.

Next, there is another tool that has been in place for years to stimulate clean technology projects using the international carbon market. This is another way to channel finance to private-sector companies involved in the energy efficiency and renewable energy sector. It’s not perfect, but experts have been working for years to streamline the program, called the Clean Development Mechanism, to better address green buildings, energy efficiency projects and city-wide efforts. Institutions such as the World Bank, the UNEP Sustainable Buildings and Climate Initiative (UNEP-SBCI) and others have made progress on methodology to do just that – but this program’s fate is wrapped up in yet another thick layer of negotiations which has the world split in two: do we continue with the Kyoto Protocol, or do we negotiate something new altogether to reduce greenhouse gas emissions?

USGBC will be joining the World Green Building Council and its delegation of GBC Australia, GBC South Africa and Jordan GBC on the ground for this historic conference. As chair of the advocacy committee for the United Nations Environment Programme’s Sustainable Buildings and Climate Initiative (UNEP-SBCI), I will also be working closely with the public and private sector members of that organization. Durban may indeed present a “fork in the road” for multilateral efforts on climate change. While the Kyoto question looms large for delegates, our position is clear – that no matter what form it takes, delegates must work diligently and transparently to come to agreement on a path forward to reduce emissions; one that incorporates mechanisms like the above to rapidly finance and bring to scale clean technology solutions like energy efficiency.

How I’ll Be Participating
Of course, green buildings can and should be part of the solution. Along with Jason Hartke, USGBC’s Vice President of National Policy, I will be in Durban to advocate that message and follow the progress of the Talks. This year is the largest GBC delegation to attend the UN Climate Conference, and we have a packed schedule of events, panel discussions, tours and meetings. These opportunities in Durban provide a platform for communicating our core messages on green building to an international audience of government, businesses, financiers and NGOs – and we plan on reporting back regularly throughout the end of the conference in our blog series, Dispatches from Durban.

Some places you can find us in Durban are…

• On panels with our colleagues at Johnson Controls, Ingersoll Rand, the World Business Council on Sustainable Development (WBCSD) and more.
• Conveying the business opportunity of energy efficiency at the World Climate Summit with Kateri Callahan of Alliance to Save Energy and Jane Henley of the WorldGBC.
• On the edge of our seats at the press conference for the WorldGBC Government Leadership Awards to see which cities won the award (U.S. cities Chicago, San Francisco and New York are up for consideration!)
• Filing up on optimism at the Cato Manor low-income green home retrofit tour, where the Green Building Council of South Africa has retrofitted an entire block of low-income homes as a COP-17 legacy project, demonstrating the ability of green building strategies to cut carbon emissions and improve lives.

A Step Toward Utopia: Green Building in Australia and New Zealand

Roger Platt
Senior Vice President, Global Policy and Law
U.S. Green Building Council

I am doubly blessed and privileged to have both a green job and a globally focused role at USGBC. The increasingly world-wide green building community is making the planet feel a lot smaller and more hospitable these days to those committed to the mission of USGBC and like-minded groups. A trip I took to New Zealand and Australia last month highlighted that reality in a very vivid way.

In the “small world” department, please allow me to relay a short personal story. In late February my college-aged daughter was beginning her junior year abroad enrolled at Canterbury University in the city of Christchurch on the South Island of New Zealand. That would be the Christchurch that experienced the heart-rending earthquake on Feb. 22. Long story short, my daughter is just fine and was moved to University of Otago in Dunedin, a few hundred miles south of Christchurch. Because of my previously scheduled travel I was able to show up just days after the disaster and offer my daughter the emotional comfort food of a familiar face during an unfamiliar kind of trauma. The extreme distance between Washington, DC and the south Island of New Zealand was bridged by the miracle of air travel. But in my case, it was also bridged by my work connecting with and supporting green building leaders across the globe….including in New Zealand.

With that story as a backdrop, let me offer some reflections on the broader trip, reflections spurred in part by my chance reading (during my return flight) of the Oxford University Press’s Very Short Introduction to Utopianism. The pamphlet-sized book points out that Australia has more examples per capita of “garden communities” and other experiments in implementing visions of a utopian future than any other country except Israel. By that measure, it seems New Zealand was third in line. It struck me that the feeling of being at home away from home in New Zealand, that I tried to communicate to my daughter, was one I was beginning to feel myself in a quite profound way. But what I was feeling was not just the special comforts of a shared language but also a common instinct that we need to make our brief time on this planet everything that it can and should be, and we need to start by living our ideals at home in our own communities.

At the U.S. Green Building Council that means being ambitious (and yes a tad utopian) about how we build, operate, live in and work in the buildings and communities that are such a large part of our lives. That is a commitment fully shared by both the New Zealand and Australian Green Building Councils. But it is also the reason behind the growing success of the World Green Building Council. Is it a coincidence that organization is today chaired by a very forward-looking Australian, Tony Arnel, and run day-to-day by a wonderful chief executive officer from New Zealand, Jane Henley? I think not.

While in Australia, I attended the board meeting of the World Green Building Council. There were representatives from Japan and South Africa among other countries. And it turns out the WGBC now has affiliated councils in 70 countries. As I read over Tony Arnel’s bio on the website in preparation for the meeting, I was particularly impressed by the paragraph noting that, “Tony has led national and international sustainability debate, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region, advocating sustainable building as a means of reducing greenhouse emissions without impacting economic growth.” The bio goes on to note that, ”In Asia, he has played a leading role in developing and nurturing key regional green building councils such as Singapore and China.” Of all the exports of Australia, the one that may have the most lasting impact in Asia is its proven commitment to greener buildings and communities.

Hosting me for the majority of my trip was Romilly Madew, the charismatic CEO of the Australian Green Building Council. She has helped build the organization membership and its ubiquitous Green Star rating tool to the point where virtually all new commercial construction in Australia’s major cities is now built green. She also chairs the World Green Building Council’s rating tool committee.

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t offer a taste of some of the exciting sustainable development projects underway in Australia. Most interesting to me was a huge new project for Sydney named “Baranagaroo” after an Aboriginal woman who lived in Sydney during early white settlement. Sometimes referred to as Sydney’s answer to New York’s Central Park, the $6 Billion (Australian dollars) project being developed by Lendlease is planned to take over 20 Hectares of under-utilized land and turn it into sprawling parkland surrounded by offices, apartments, hotels and shopping. All built, of course, to a robust green standard.

Exciting stuff in a part of the world I felt very privileged to see.